Ron Warren, Native American Flutes
Ron Warren is an Echota Cherokee musician, currently based in Baltimore, Maryland. Widely regarded as one of
the most accomplished and innovative Native American flute players in the country, he is also highly regarded as
a song writer/composer/arranger and as a music educator. He performs regularly with singer Janice Torres and
guitarist Lenny Stevens. Together, they are core members of Aura Surey, a blues/roots rock band.
A five-time Native American Music Award nominee, Ron’s work has also been supported by the Music Omi
Foundation, the Maryland Arts Council, the First Nations Composers Initiative, and has been featured on NPR,
Canadian Broadcast Corporation, Pacifica Radio, and numerous other media outlets. His music has been used in
several documentary films including a series on Native Repatriation issues produced by the Smithsonian
Institute.
Most of the music Ron plays on Native flute comes to him while he is in outdoor places, especially anywhere
near moving water or in the forested hills and mountains of the eastern U.S. His love and respect for these
places grew from many shared adventures with his father and brothers growing up in rural Ohio. Both of his
parents came from farming families, so a love of growing things and a deep gratitude for the many gifts of
Mother Earth runs deep.
Like many tribal people of his generation, Ron was not raised on a reservation and was not taught his traditional
language, although he knew who he was from a very young age. He considers the attempted (and often
successful) destruction of native languages to be among the greatest sins of the U.S. government. While he will
probably never speak Tsalagi fluently, he continues to learn and practice what he can.
“It is impossible to return to Native life as it was before contact with the Europeans and their American
descendants. As a mixed-blood person, I wouldn’t be who I am without that contact. But before anything else, I
am Cherokee. If my flute playing has any meaning beyond my love of doing it, I hope that it contributes in some
tiny little way to the celebration of life that is Cherokee culture and to the battle against cultural genocide that
continues to afflict indigenous peoples all over the planet.”
Throughout high school and college, Ron played keyboards in assorted rock bands. As a classically trained
composer and pianist, Ron completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree at the University of Maryland. While
retaining great respect for his mentors, he felt constrained by academic music. While still in graduate school, he
began a journey back towards more traditional Native American ideas of music making while never losing his
love of rock, blues, reggae and related styles. Directly inspired by the direct but sophisticated early solo Native
American flute recordings of R.C. Nakai, Ron began searching for a Native flute. When he found one, the
connection was immediate and he never looked back.
As a soloist and with his band, Aura Surey, Ron performs regularly at important venues, festivals and Native
cultural events throughout the U.S. A 2011 Residency at Music Omi in New York provided a challenging and
inspiring opportunity to create new music with traditional and avant-garde musicians from around the planet.
Recent performance highlights include appearances with Janice Torres at the National Museum for the
American Indian in Washington, D.C. and as Native Flute soloist with pianist Paul Barnes and the Minot
Symphony Orchestra in the 2nd Piano Concerto by Philip Glass.
In his recent work, Ron continues on his chosen path of creating new music for Native Flute that expands the
musical language of the instrument while remaining firmly in touch with traditional native musical structures
and practices. His 2011 CD release, River & Circle, is an evocative collection of songs for solo Native American
flute. The entire thirteen song project was recorded in one studio session. All tracks are single takes with no
edits or overdubs. All of the songs are structured, but also have elements of improvisation. These recorded
performances have an immediacy and spontaneity that is at the heart of traditional musical practices. The
structures of many of the songs as well as their natural world inspiration also reflect Cherokee symbolism. Ron’s
mastery and expansion of the technical and modal language of the Native Flute brings freshness to the music
and often leaves listeners wondering, “How did he do that?”
“I have pretty much given up trying to decide what is or is not ‘traditional’ music. How long does something
have to be done before it is traditional? How far back do we have to go to be ‘authentic’? In any case, almost all
music is in some sense blended music. The reality is that whenever people from different cultures bump into
each other, one of the good things that happens is they start sharing - food, music, technology, DNA… What
matters to me is that all the music I do is guided and informed, consciously or not, by my perspective as a
Cherokee.”
Recently, Ron has been composing an innovative piece for piano and Native flute, to be performed with his
friend and colleague, Daniel Lau. Dr. Lau is a sensitive and adventurous classical pianist, so the piano part is fully
composed to take advantage of his considerable abilities. The flute part is largely a structured improvisation
guided by the harmonic activity of the piano. The harmonies featured in the piano part are drawn from an
extended mode based on traditional interval patterns associated with Native Flute, but greatly expanded so that
the flute can be heard in a harmonic setting that is much more rich and expressive than is typically heard.
Inspired by the gentle dance of fireflies during their great summer solstice displays and titled Rendezvous 1:
Fireflies, the piece will be given its first performance during the coming concert season.
Ron’s upcoming projects include new duo music with Janice Torres, additional “Rendezvous” pieces with other
musician colleagues and launching a blog focused on helping other Native flute players on their musical path.
He also is Associate Professor of Music at Washington Adventist University and teaches privately in the
Baltimore area.